Tree Risk News

A case of rough Justice?

Here's a LinkedIn article about the landmark Cavanagh v Witley Parish Council Judgment. It explores the gulf between reasonable, proportionate, and reasonably practicable tree risk management and assessment, and expert evidence in some UK court Judgments.

We now have a Cavanagh v Witley Parish Council Update

Every summer, when we get long hot dry periods, concern is often raised about the risk from Summer Branch Drop (SBD).  Fear not.   We’ve got the risk management of SBD covered for you in our free Summer Branch Drop (SBD) Guide.

Is this SBD?

In brief, the overall risk from SBD is mind-boggling low. What that means is there’s no need to fret about putting up signs, or fencing, or pruning, unless you have a tree that’s a repeat offender.

Have a look at our Risk Management page for lots more free and handy common sense tree risk management advice and help.

When a tree might be 'dangerous'*, it'll usually have obvious features (not tree defects) that you can't help but notice.

To help you spot trees that might be dangerous, here's an illustrated Obvious Tree Risk Features Guide for you to download.

We're a not-for-profit and this is released under a creative commons licence, so we're more than happy for you to share it around.

*Dangerous = where the risk is not Acceptable or Tolerable.

A short piece about why we shouldn't use 'risk of harm' when talking about tree risk.

The risk of harm?

'Tree Defect' no longer appears in any of VALID's Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategies.

Want to know why we're 'ditching the defect' here, and the App is going to have a ? added to D for DEFECT?  Click the link to this short article to find out.

Taking the 'Defect' out of tree risk-benefit management strategies

Most of the research into ‘Tree Architecture’ (Arboritecture) is from France and Canada.  That means it’s published in French, which many of us can’t read. This piece by Tom Joye, in the UK’s Arboricultural Association’s Arb Magazine, is a great introduction to the world of Tree Architecture, and what it can reveal about the ‘development stage’ of a tree.  It’ll have you look at growth and epicormic growth in a different way.

Following several requests, there’s now a What is VALID? about on one side of paper.

To make good decisions (about tree risk) means that we have to have confidence in what we do know and what we don't know.  This double-header about confidence is a great listen from the BBC World Service.

It's probably not much of surprise to find out there's very little overlap between confidence and competence; how good people think they are, and how good they really are.

Confidence: Why it misleads us

But confidence can also be a force for good.  Here's how.

Confidence: How it can help us